Flirtation
by lazaefair
Summary: Four loosely linked ficlets in rough chronological order. Larry/Ahkmenrah UST. The boys snatching moments for themselves amid the chaos of the museum.


1.

"Hello."

"Hi."

"Is something wrong?" Ahkmenrah sat down on the floor next to Larry, leaning against the wall.

"Not really," Larry said gloomily.

Ahkmenrah's lips quirked. He made himself comfortable.

Larry studied the museum's scratched wood flooring.

Ahkmenrah assumed a meditation pose and closed his eyes.

Larry put his head in his hands.

Ahkmenrah breathed evenly.

"Jedediah and Octavius are f...they're lovers," Larry said unhappily.

"Yes, it's the museum's worst kept secret," Ahkmenrah said without opening his eyes, thus missing the double take Larry performed.

"Wait, what, you mean everyone knew except me? How long has it been going on?" he demanded.

"I became aware of their affair about three months ago." Ahkmenrah opened his eyes and looked sideways at Larry. "You got along with them easily when you didn't know they were fucking," he remarked, then continued calmly over the sound of Larry choking, "Why would things be different now?"

"I just..." Larry shook his head. "Now I'm thinking about all the times I must've walked right past two tiny men _having sex_ in some corner somewhere. All naked, tiny, and...okay, look, museum exhibits should NOT be having sex. Naked. In the museum. My son comes here during the day!" He grimaced expressively, in the way only someone truly squicked can pull off.

"I realize this may be a bad time to remind you that we're very much flesh-and-blood when we're awake, with everything that entails." Ahkmenrah paused delicately. "But what did you think Mr. Roosevelt and Sacagawea were doing last night in the Early American furniture exhibit?"

"GAH!" Larry grabbed his head. "Okay, seriously, did NOT need to think of that." He sprang to his feet and paced back and forth. "I mean, seriously, on top of the Jed/Octavius thing, I really, _really_ don't need to think of Teddy _Roosevelt_ and...doing...GAH, I'm seeing it again!" He collapsed with a muffled moan next to Ahkmenrah.

The pharaoh had been chewing on a lip meditatively, watching Larry pace. He weighed a decision in his mind, concluded against it, and smiled secretly - if a little sadly.

After a while, "The American fascination with sex and simultaneous need to repress said fascination has presented a curious paradox I've yet to understand. Your Puritans seem to have a lot to answer for," he said thoughtfully, spoiling his carefully neutral expression with a sly grin when Larry choked again.

2.

"Seriously? It's wrong that you know more about American history than I do."

Ahkmenrah shrugged slowly. "I no longer rule a kingdom. What is there to do while bound to an institution of learning, but to learn?"

Larry opened his mouth, but whatever he was saying was drowned out in low thunder. He visibly sighed and rolled his eyes, mouthing, "Later?"

The pharaoh shook his head ruefully, leaned forward, and shouted into Larry's ear, "I'll go with you!"

"Okay!"

They left the gallery with some speed, as the thunder grew louder, accompanied by muffled screams and ululating battle cries. Larry poked his head around a corner and whipped it back as an axe whizzed past. It buried itself in the wall at the other end of the corridor.

They glanced at each other grimly. Then Ahkmenrah grinned and hefted the dagger that had mysteriously appeared in his hands. Larry raised his eyebrows, but the rising battle lust he'd never seen in the pharaoh's eyes before was magnetic, and he grinned in response.

They stepped out together.

3.

"Listen, I just wanted to thank you for back there," Larry waved a hand behind him at the mezzanine level.

When Ahkmenrah smiled, Larry's heterosexual, never-had-any-crushes-on-boys-really-no-seriously heart skipped a beat. He put it down to the adrenaline from having just defused Shootout at the OK Corral: Part Two in the Frontiers gallery.

"It was my pleasure. My old tutors would have had a collective fit, but I always believed in utilizing unorthodox tactics in diplomacy and war," the pharaoh said with what looked a lot like sparkling eyes. He tilted his head. "Much like your methods. Khnemu would've hated you."

"Ah...thanks, I think?" Larry scratched the back of his head.

Teddy Roosevelt, passing by, spied the pair from the other end of the corridor. Ahkmenrah had been unusually helpful lately to their intrepid night guard - granted, the senior museum characters all did their best, and Ahkmenrah's facility with languages was always useful. But neither Teddy nor Sacagawea were of the opinion that 'help' really necessitated so much time alone with Larry at the ends of hallways or in hidden corners. Teddy chuckled to himself, and left them to it.

4.

"Larry," Ahkmenrah shook his head and leaned closer, breath rising in little puffs of steam. Larry involuntarily leaned forward, too. The pharaoh's skin was the exact color of the coffees that they both clutched in cold hands.

"Larry," Ahkmenrah said, his eyes beginning a slow burn that Larry found himself uncomfortably responding to, a little. "I've been trapped in a glass case for decades, and before that, on the wall of Cambridge bloody University, and before that, I lay in the inner chamber of a tomb for _centuries_. This--" he looked around, at the snowy stillness of New York on a winter night, at the vast black sky, at Larry, "--this I would not be experiencing now, the freedom, the pure feeling of _sensation_. If it weren't for you."

The fragrance of cinnamon and coffee was heady, and Ahkmenrah was close. Like, really, really close. Larry took a nervous step back, but Ahkmenrah moved with him. Somehow they'd stopped walking and streetlight pooled around them, throwing shadows everywhere.

"I...you're welcome?"


End file.
